Not For Us
by MillyVeil
Summary: Clint comes back from an op in Dubai and something isn't right. Natasha is there to pick up the pieces when it's all over. [post-mission, hurt/comfort]


Natasha's phone rings at four minutes past four in the morning.

"Sixth disctrict station," Fury snaps without as much as a hello. "Hayes Street. Half an hour."

*' *' *'

When she walks into the police station, cold and tired and not at all amused, Fury is already there, signing paper after paper by the front desk with sharp, angry slashes of his pen. His whole body screams 'pissed off' louder than usual. Clint stands by the wall, arms tightly crossed over his chest, his shoulders high and tight. Natasha sighs. God knows why Fury thinks she's suitable for this.

As she walks the last few feet towards Clint, she makes another more thorough evaluation of what she sees. Split lip, a darkening bruise high on the side of his face. His jeans are dirty, like he's been rolling on the ground, stained with what most likely is dried blood. Idiot probably resisted arrest.

"You drunk?" she asks.

He looks up at her voice, like he hadn't even heard her approach, and that rubs Natasha the wrong way. Situational awareness is as second nature to him as it is to her, always and ever, but here, in the cold four am light of the police station booking area, he looks like he doesn't even know where he is.

"Are you?" she prompts.

He shakes his head, just a small hint of movement.

"Romanoff, with me," she hears Fury order, and she steps over to the water cooler where he alternates between glowering at the papers in his hand and his phone.

"Why am I here?" she asks. "Coulson is much less likely to beat him unconscious with his own shoe for being stupid than I am."

"Trust me," Fury said darkly, "if Coulson was available, he'd be here. But he isn't, he won't be back until the day after tomorrow."

"And I was the best candidate to play wet nurse to Barton that you could think of after him?" She rolls her eyes.

"You're his partner, Romanoff, act like it for one goddamn moment," Fury snaps and she straightens her spine, prickly defensiveness rearing up, because she's not good at this, at what he wants her to do here, and he knows it. Fury glares down at the paper in his hands again, then sighs. "You're the only one I trust with this. If you won't do it, I have an armed security team ready to pick him up."

An armed security team? To get a stupid and possibly drunk Clint back to SHIELD? "What happened?"

Fury folds the papers and shoves them into the pocket of his coat. "He was arrested for assault."

 _Dammit, Barton._

"We don't have a lot of details," Fury continues.

"But you have some?"

"We know who he assaulted." Fury presses his fingers against his eyes tiredly. "Christina Thompson."

Natasha's fingers comes to a stop on the buttons of her coat. She knows who Tina Thompson is.

"Other than that, the details are sketchy as fuck," Fury continues. "From what she reported he came over, had dinner, watched half an episode of something on TV and then dragged her into the bathroom by the hair before beating the fuck out of her. He and left her half-unconscious, tied to the water pipes."

She narrows her eyes. This isn't right. Clint doesn't do that. It's not in his nature. So either Tina is trying to set him up for some reason, or something else is going on here. "Do you believe her?"

"Hard to say. She's got the injuries to back it up."

Natasha glances over at Clint. "Has he said anything?"

Fury shakes his head. "Says he doesn't remember anything of the past seven hours."

Natasha studies her partner and tries to see anything that could explain this, but all she sees is Clint looking miserable and small in a way he never does. Something uneasy settles in her stomach. "Roofied?" she asks, without taking her eyes off him.

"It's possible he was drugged with something. That's why I want him taken to SHIELD." Fury sighs. "And I'd rather you take him there, because like I said, the other option is cuffing him and getting a security team over to take him there. He can't explain what the hell happened, and I can't afford him going off on someone else like that. I've got to get to work on keeping this from turning into an even bigger shit storm than it already is."

*' *' *'

"Sit rep," she demands.

Clint closes the car door on the driving December sleet and props his elbow against the passenger side window. "Well and truly fucked." His voice is colorless and tired.

"Gotta do better than that, Barton." She starts the engine and turns the heaters to max.

He scrubs at his eyes with his knuckles. "It's all I got."

She puts the car in reverse and twists to look over her shoulder as she gets out of the parking lot. "What's the last thing you remember?" The car starts beeping annoyingly, so she reaches past Clint, snags the seat belt he hasn't bothered to put on, and clicks it into the buckle lock.

He shrugs and shakes his head. "Leaving my place, calling her, asking what she wanted to eat, and then…" He looks at his hand for a moment, then drops it. "Then nothing. A black hole until… I don't know, two hours ago?" He looks up at her. "Did I kill her?"

"No. She's alive."

Clint kind of crumples and covers his eyes with a shaky hand. "Thank God," he mumbles. He remains like that for a long time. "They wouldn't tell me anything," he says hoarsely as she turns onto Eastern Avenue, his hand still over his eyes. "Just that I hurt her." He goes quiet, but she can feel the question he's hesitant to ask. She waits patiently. "How bad?" he finally asks.

"That I don't know."

"You know where she is?"

"Fairfax ER."

Clint nods, and during the rest of the ride he stares silently out the side window with hollow eyes. Christmas decorated buildings and bridges and lights go by, and Natasha is willing to bet money he doesn't see any of it.

*' *' *'

They keep him for eighteen hours.

They take vial after vial of blood, they scan him and test him and take swabs like there's no tomorrow, and Clint just lets them. Not a word leaves his mouth, unless he's asked a direct question, and even then the answers are mostly monosyllabic. When he's put in a bed and told to sleep, Natasha leaves, safe in the knowledge that he'll be watched over.

She still makes sure she's back before he wakes up the next morning.

As the morning turns into afternoon, she finds out that Clint wasn't the only one from the Dubai job who had lost touch with reality for a few hours last night. Another three had gone berserk, one trashing his SHIELD quarters, one attacking a fellow agent, and the last one had tried to get to the weapons locker at the shooting range and taken great offense when he had been stopped.

It takes hours of testing and analysis and conferring for SHIELD to conclude that all four had trace amounts of a foreign chemical compound in their blood, one that was metabolizing fast enough that had they'd taken blood from Clint an hour later, it would have been untraceable. It hadn't been caught in the routine screenings, and whatever it was had apparently resulted in a violent delayed reaction. Clint sits there as they explain it to him, nods in all the right places, and signs the discharge papers when they're put in front of him.

Natasha is collecting the last of the very few things she brought over the previous night when she hears Clint say, "Hey, boss."

Natasha looks up. Coulson comes straight from the transporter, she realizes. It has apparently been one of the rare outings during which Phil gets up close and personal with the action, because he's still wearing his Kevlar vest over his white dress shirt. His gun holster is still strapped around his thigh. He drops his bag on the floor by the door and walks to Clint who's sitting on the edge of the bed, jacket and boots on, ready to go.

Clint watches him approach, and Natasha sees the wary, borderline defeated look in his eyes that tells her he's got every one of his senses dialed up to twelve, scanning for the faintest scent of rejection or condemnation. It makes her want to shake him, because he knows Coulson better than that.

Coulson comes to a stop in front of him, puts his hand on his shoulder. "How are you, Clint," he asks, and Natasha realizes she hasn't asked. Not once.

"Been better," he admits. Coulson keeps looking at him, and Clint's eyes take on a suspicious sheen. For a horrible second Natasha thinks he's going to start to cry. But then he rubs his forearm over his face and clears his throat. "Ready to get the hell out of here, Sir."

Coulson glances up at Natasha, and she folds Clint's shirt and puts it into the overnight bag. "All packed up and ready to go," she tells him and hands him the bag.

"Thank you, Natasha," Coulson says. "I'll take him home."

She nods and watches them leave, Coulson first and Clint trailing behind.

*' *' *'

Natasha goes to London. It's a tense, week-long operation that ends in an anti-climax when they have to pull out because someone somewhere up the chain decided to scrap the mission. She doesn't know who or why, and she honestly doesn't care.

*' *' *'

She's been home for less than an hour and is weighing her options of what to eat when there's a knock on her door. She opens to find Clint standing leaning against the wall across the hallway.

"Welcome back," he says.

"Thanks."

"How was it?"

"Boring. The only redeeming thing was the amazing scampi fritti I ate last night."

"Well, at least there's that," he smiles.

"Yes," she agrees. "At least there's that. I'll have to take you there someday."

"Speaking of eating, wanna grab something?"

She looks back at the open cabinets in her kitchenette, at the unappetizing cans of non-perishables, and decides that sounds like a wonderful idea. "Sure. Where?" She slips her feet into a pair of heeled boots, grabs her coat.

He shrugs. "I'm fine with anything."

They don't go far, just a couple of blocks to a steakhouse they both like. It's crowded, and the only seats left are at the bar counter.

After they finish their meal, they stay at the bar. Clint orders another beer and Natasha gets a glass of wine.

"How's Tina," she asks.

Clint is silent for a long time. "She's out of the hospital," he finally says

Natasha nods. "Have you talked to her?"

"I tried."

"And?"

His shoulders slump a fraction. "And she wouldn't see me. Or answer the phone when I called. Last time I tried, the number had been disconnected." His mouth twists in a bleak, humorless smile. "Not that I blame her for never wanting anything more to do with me. I mean, I'd run for the hills after that, too, but I just… I just wanted to… " He sighs. "I don't know. It's not like saying 'I'm sorry' really makes up for something like that, does it?"

"I heard from Coulson she's going to be fine."

"Four months of recovery. Barring any complications." He rolls the neck of the bottle slowly between his palms.

"That's good," Natasha says.

"Not really." He puts the bottle down. "I hurt her. Bad."

"If you really had hurt her bad, she'd be looking at way more than four months," Natasha points out.

"A fracture to the goddamn head, Nat," he snaps. "That's bad enough. Not to mention the fingers I broke, the collarbone, the torn ligaments, the broken teeth and black eye and—"

Natasha puts a hand on his arm, give a sharp squeeze, because he's raising his voice and people around them are starting to look uncomfortable.

He slumps back against the low backrest, then a few seconds later he sits back up and waves the bartender over. He orders two vodka shots.

"I hurt her."

"Yes," Natasha says this time. Because she can tell him again it wasn't so bad, that Tina will live, but that is the irrefutable truth. He did hurt her.

He downs both shots, one after the other, turning the empty glasses upside down in front of him. "I still don't remember it."

"The doctors said you most likely never will."

"She probably kissed me when she let me in," he mumbles.

"Clint," she sighs. "Don't do this to yourself. She's nice, she really is, and I'm sorry she was hurt, but you know it was never going to work, she was never—"

"You don't know that," he snaps. "Just because you don't get how normal people—"

The words are venomous and stinging, and Natasha blinks at him.

He buries his face in his hands, his shoulders tight and miserable again. "Sorry," he says, his voice muffled behind his hands. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

Yes, you did, she thinks.

She's not unaware of her own outlier personality. The way Clint doggedly keeps trying to attach himself to someone else - no matter how predestined for failure that relationship is - makes the difference between them crystal clear. She doesn't need the same way other people need. Or want the same way other people want. She told Coulson once she thinks she's the luckier of the two them. I doubt Clint would agree, had been Coulson's reply, and to this day she doesn't know if it had been wry amusement or pity in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Clint repeats. His voice is quieter now. "I just— Please, just don't say it."

"Don't say what?" she asks.

" _I told you so_. I know you're thinking it, but could you just… Not right now."

She had been thinking that, actually, ever since the moment she realized what had happened that night, but she's a little hurt that he thinks she would throw it in his face like this.

It's frustrating. Clint is a smart guy, but sometimes she thinks he's just about the slowest person she knows. He never learns. He keeps falling right into the same trap, over and over and over, and he's just about heartbroken every time it doesn't work out. With his life, his job, his personality, the normalcy of having a relationship with a civilian will always be a temporary thing. Natasha doesn't understand why he can't accept it for what it is. It's not for them. It never will be.

But Clint is stupidly willing to let hope take the lead. He hopes for good things, for brighter days and happy endings, despite being so painfully aware that those things don't really exist in their world. Not more than in passing, anyway.

He gets to his feet. "Gonna..." He point towards the restrooms.

She watches him go, then her phone makes a bell-like little 'biiing' and she digs in her coat pocket until she finds it. It's a text from Coulson.

 _Barton with you?_

She dials his number. Clint disappears behind the corner just as Coulson picks up.

"He's with me," she says in lieu of greeting.

"Good," Coulson says. "Good. I got a little worried. He hasn't answered my calls all day."

"He's fine. We've just finished dinner, about to move on to desert."

"Right, and how much of that desert will be in liquid form?"

Natasha looks at the empty beer bottles and the overturned shot glasses, thinks of the look on Clint's face just now. "I'd say most of it."

She hears Coulson sigh. "She's pressing charges. Christina Thompson. He found out this morning. Aggravated domestic assault. Fury is stone-walling them for now."

Natasha feels herself tensing up. "For _now_?"

"Until he can make the charges go away. It will be settled out of court, we're working on it."

"Fury damn well better make them go away," she growls. She makes sure she keeps her voice down as she continues. "This isn't on Clint. They missed the fact that four members of that team came back compromised. Four!"

"It was a compound unlike anything we've ever had to look for before, Natasha. But we learn, and it will be part of the screening from now on."

She sits back, her spine still tense. "What happens now?"

"Nothing. As far as Clint is concerned. But he's off the roster for another week."

"Can I take him out of town?"

"He's free to go wherever he wants. Except…"

"Except?" she prompts.

"Except near Thompson. Please make sure he doesn't violate the protection order. I have enough paperwork as it is."

"I'll do my best," she promises and hangs up.

When Clint comes back from the bathroom she's already got her coat on. She hands him his jacket. "Let's go," she tells him.

She takes him to a bar that sits hidden on a backstreet four blocks away. They sit at the bar counter and Natasha orders. The bartender lines up eight shot glasses in front of them and fills them to the brim. Natasha hands one to clint and clinks her own glass against it before downing it all. It burns as it goes down, and next to her Clint starts coughing into his sleeve as he empties his glass too.

"Jesus Christ," he says hoarsely when he catches his breath. "What is this? Paint thinner?" But he doesn't hesitate to follow suit when Natasha picks up the next glass.

"Na zdrowie," she says and knocks the second one back.

They finish the ones in front of them in short order. Natasha keeps the shots keep coming after that, but they take it slower. They don't speak more than a few words, and none of them are about Tina. By the time the bartender politely tells them it's time to close, Clint is half-draped over the bar counter, head resting on his arm, and he's sliding an empty shot glass along the bar to try to knock down a small pyramid of other empty shot glasses. Natasha has to admit she's a bit buzzed herself. A little more than buzzed, actually, she comes to realize when she gets to her feet.

They're not far from her place, but she gets a cab, because once they hit the street she realizes Clint is so drunk he's got serious problems standing up straight. She manages to get him up the stairs and through the door. She more or less pours him onto her couch, and he goes easily and bonelessly.

She manages to get her heeled boots off without falling on her ass, and when she returns to the couch with a large glass of water and three Tylenols for him he has closed his eyes and rolled over on his side, one hand under his cheek, the other loosely curled in front of his chest.

She puts the water and the pills on the coffee table, then arranges the blanket over him.

"Feel like I'm floating," he mumbles without opening his eyes.

"Enjoy it while it lasts," she advises and hears him hum a little. She's feeling a bit floaty herself, to be honest. She pats his arm and is about to head to her own bed when he fumbles for her wrist. She lets his fingers close around her hand. "What?"

He doesn't speak for a long time, just holds on. "I really liked her." His quiet words are so raw it makes her ache. "I _really_ liked her, Nat."

"I know. I'm sorry."

She kneels next to the couch and waits there until his grip on her goes lax and he's asleep. She runs her knuckles lightly over his temple with a quiet sigh, down the stubble that's coming in on his cheek and wishes things could be different for him.

She pulls the blanket up higher around him, then gets to her feet and leaves him to sleep it off.

~ The End ~


End file.
